Florescent emergency ballasts, rapid start, instant star

[peter]

We are wiring an office with three emergency lights [ok, luminaires] and they sent us regular lights so the idea is to replace/add on an emergency ballast. How can you tell the difference between an "Instant Start Slimline Ballast" and a "Rapid Start Ballast"? What is a "Lead-Lag Instant Start Slimline Ballast"?

What is the voltage on the various leads? For example, the yellow and blue wires. Sometimes two wires are connected to the two pins of the tombstone and sometimes only one?
I have a choice of 12 different diagrams and I think diagram C is is the correct one but why? The name of the device seems to be "DualLite".

What is the significance of the yellow, red, blue, blue/white, yellow/black wires?

Does anyone know the theory and inner workings of these things? I need a complete rundown.
~Peter

 

[celtic]

Re: Florescent emergency ballasts, rapid start, instant star

http://www.advancetransformer.com/index.jsp


I'd suggest getting it from the source.

Retrofitting a "standard" lay-in fixture to EM can be quite the challenge for the inexperienced...I can only imagine a Slim-Line type fixture being equally difficult until you get the hang of it.

 

[mc5w]

Re: Florescent emergency ballasts, rapid start, instant star

A rapid start bulb uses filament heating to heat the cathodes. Teh filament uses 4 volts applied when the ballasts is energized. The partially electronic/electromagnetic ballasts shut off the filament once the arc is started. Back in vacuum tube days the filament supply was called an A supply or battery. In the case of a 2 lamp ballasts you have an A1 4 volt winding across the 2 red leads, an A2 winding across the 2 yellow leads, and an A3 winding across the 2 blue leads. The B supply, which drives the arc, is connected from 1 of the red leads to 1 of the blue leads. There is also a small capacitor connected from 1 red lead to 1 yellow lead that causes the yellow/blue lamp to start first. This is what is known as a series ballast.

The slimline bulbs do NOT use filament heating and use brute force to start the arc. This cuts into cathode life. In the case of a 2 lamp 120 volt ballasts the arc current runs in series through the 2 lamps. In this case the B supply that drives the arc consists of the 120 volts plus a booster winding that is across the red and blue leads. 1 of the 2 bulbs has a trickle capacitor across it that causes the other bulb to start first. A lot of 277 volt slimline ballasts have 2 B supplies, 1 for each lamp. The B1 supply is inductively ballasted and the B2 supply is capacitively ballasted forming a lead-lag ballast. There are also some 277 volt slimline ballasts that have one B supply with the lamps in series and there is a capacitor across 1 lamp that causes the other to start first. The only way to tell the 2 types apart is that in the case of Advance there will be a P or S in the model number. S, which stands for series, has 1 B supply with the arc current running in series through the bulbs. P, which stands for parallel, has a separate B supply for each bulb.

What further confuses things is that there are instant start ballasts for use with rapid start bulbs. I do not recommend these because they greatly shorted bulb life. You can just as easily get programmed rapid start ballasts that energize the filaments, gradually run the bulbs up to 3/4 power, disconnect the filaments, and then run the bulbs up to 100% power.

Advance also makes some high output programmed rapid start ballasts that shut off the B supply if it does not detect filaments across the red and blue lead pairs. This way, the ballast can meet NEC restrictions as to open circuit voltage in residential applications. These ballasts cannot be checked with the bulbs removed from the lampholders.

 

[mc5w]

Re: Florescent emergency ballasts, rapid start, instant star

I forgot to add that Bodine has downloadable wiring diagrams for connecting their emergency ballasts to different kinds of normal power ballasts. These are more complete than the diagram that is on the ballasts nameplate. There is a feature in Acrobat reader that allows you mark out part of a page and blow it up to fill an 8.5x11 piece of paper.

 

[infinity]

Re: Florescent emergency ballasts, rapid start, instant star

Peter,
If you're unsure of the ballast type you can find the ballast model number and look up on the manufacturer's web site the type. Also I would add that not all battery packs are the same. The Bodine ones that were mentioned here must be fed from the same circuit as the ballast. Other manufacturer's battery pack allow you to use a different circuit.

 

[steve66]

Re: Florescent emergency ballasts, rapid start, instant star

The best one is probably this:

advance transformer

It that doesn't tell you what you want to know, try these:

web page

web page

Notice you may need different sockets.

Steve

 

[peter]

Re: Florescent emergency ballasts, rapid start, instant star

Thank you MC5W for your excellent reply. It is good to have a florescent expert on this board.
~Peter

 

[physis]

Re: Florescent emergency ballasts, rapid start, instant star

I'd really like to see a ballast schematic. I've tried at least twice since this topic started to find one to post but I'm so easily frustrated when after 10 minutes I still can't find anything useful and some sites are trying to attack my software environment with junkware and ads that I just gave up.

 

[hurk27]

Re: Florescent emergency ballasts, rapid start, instant star

Sam you need Web Ferret PM me with your E-mail

Here's the link to all of Dual Lite"s emg ballast retro-fit ballast:
Dual-Lite Emg' back up ballast
click on model you have then down on left click on installation PDF's and it will show you the correct way to wire them.

Edited because I for got to add the stupid link. :roll:

[ May 19, 2005, 12:05 AM: Message edited by: hurk27 ]